Eyeball Report

So in 2003 I have a torn retina. It’s sewn
together, and I’ll never walk into walls, but
I can also never read with that eye again: every
straight line in the universe is now wavy.

But it’s ok, because who needs two eyes to write
with? Over the following decade I have nine very
minor surgeries on my other eye — kind of like
looking into an endlessly repeating flash camera
from 3 inches away — and in that decade I produce
something like 35 more books and a ton of stories.

If things seemed a little small or a little fuzzy, well,
that was the beauty of having a computer and a Nook: I
could just make the type bigger and bolder. I knew my
vision wasn’t what it once was, but as long as I could
read, write, and edit, I didn’t worry about it. All my
driving was local, and I could see the streets and cars
and people just fine. Okay, I couldn’t read the street
signs, but I -knew- the streets.

Comes March of this year, I have to go in to renew my
driver’s license — and I can’t pass the vision test. I
can’t even come close to passing it. So I go to the
Cincinnati Eye Institute, where they’re been playing with
my retinas for a decade, and lo and behold, this time it’s
my cornea.

I was there again today for 4 hours of testing (if that’s
the right word, and I suspect it isn’t), and I’ll be going
in for surgery the first week in June. And hopefully I’ll
be able to get my license back before Carol gets her knee
surgery.

About Mike

According to Locus, I am the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction. I have won 5 Hugos (from a record 37 nominations), a Nebula, and other major awards in the USA, France, Japan, Spain, Croatia, Catalonia, and Poland. I'm and author of 74 novels, over 260 stories, and 3 screenplays, and the editor of 42 anthologies. My work has been translated into 27 languages. I am currently the editor of the Stellar Guild line of books, and Galaxy's Edge magazine.